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  3. The Fisher King

EBOOK

The Fisher King

A Novel

Anthony Powell
4
(1)
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Pages
258
Year
2013
Language
English
Publisher
The University of Chicago Press

About

Aboard the Alecto, prolific romance author Valentine Beals ruminates on the ship's most seemingly incongruous couple: a graceful, ethereal, virginal dancer named Barberina Rookwood and her lover, Saul Henchman, a crippled, emasculated war hero and photographer. Fancifully, Beals imagines Henchman to be the reembodiment of one of the most mysterious Arthurian legends, the Fisher King-the maimed and impotent ruler of a barren country of whom Perceval failed to ask the right questions. A myth with many permutations-and a blurred borderland between them-the Fisher King legend dovetails the various explanations Powell offers from his competing narrators as to why a talented young dancer would forsake her art to care for a feeble older man.

Ostensibly a novel about gossip on a cruise ship, The Fisher King is much more: a highly stylized narrative infused with Greek mythology, legend, and satire.

Related Subjects

  • General (Adult Fiction)
  • Adult Fiction
  • Literary
  • Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology
  • General (Humorous)
  • Humorous

Artists

Anthony PowellAuthor